Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Challenges of Our Time

difficult book, got here in a reasonable amount of time & came in an envelope which prevented any damage to the book

Okay, maybe not an entire IR degree. Most require classes in economics and geography as well. However, this was a required text for one of my international affairs classes, and it was one of the few books that I refused to sell back at the end of the semester, despite being the quintessential starving college student. Although it is clearly written and easy to understand, it is not simply a collection of truisms that any first year student would take for granted. Force and Statecraft really does contain just about everything you need to know for an IR degree. It is organized by topic, which many of my classmates found boring. However, I found that this allowed for the clearest exposition of the ideas possible, and allowed the authors to examine each idea in detail before moving on to the next. The pairing of the authors is excellent. Alexander George is a political scientist specializing in foreign relations, and Gordon Craig is a historian specializing in diplomatic and interstate history. I am convinced that it is this pairing that allows Force and Statecraft to have such a broad scope without losing any of its expertise, as often happens in books by a single author. Both are excellent writers, and their other books are highly recommended as well. This book begins, as many IR degree programs do, with a diplomatic history course. This is essential to understanding international relations today, and Craig makes it exciting and interesting. It should be noted that this first section also covers the importance of economics and domestic opinion in the making of foreign policy, something that is often overlooked by other books. The book then goes on, topic by topic, to discuss the major topics in foreign policy, paying particular attention to the techniques of diplomacy and foreign policy, something also lacking in most books in the field. This is a book anyone interested in foreign policy should have on their bookshelf.